Monday, December 19, 2016

The Only Way For TrumpCare To Be 'Terrific'

ObamaCare was on the way to the emergency room and in need of major surgery no matter who won the election.

The pool of customers is too small, too old and too costly, and premiums are soaring as a result. The reason is simple: The law succeeded in making insurance affordable for older, higher-cost, and near-poor individuals, but has fallen far short of its promise for those who are relatively young, lower cost, working class and middle class.

Those latter groups comprise some 24 million people who lack either employer or government coverage, and if TrumpCare were to give them a better deal, while preserving the protections afforded to the vulnerable, Democrats would have every reason to get on board.

There is an exceedingly simple bipartisan formula for replacing ObamaCare's individual market reforms with "something terrific," in Donald Trump's words, at least relative to the status quo and to the GOP plans on the table.

That formula, explained in further detail below, is this: Get rid of the heavy-handed mandates and ...